I think you're spot on! For Apple and Google to merge all their powers into a harmonious super-product is naive. Too much difference in culture. Expect to see more minor items like GMaps on the iPhone and Export to YouTube in iMovie but nothing more.

Here's some perspective.
http://www.thestreet.com/_email/newsanalysis/techstockupdate/10384062.html

The rush to mashup Apple and Google is an extension of an old game of "What would it take to knock Microsoft off the mountain?"

You can play this game ad infinitum, as long as you wrap the mission and culture of the companies around conquering Redmond.

Bob, thanks for the reminder that Leopards - even in new skins - do not change their spots... not even for a cool Mountain View.

uphill battle for both companies.

google is doing battle against the telcos, media companies, the ad industry and the US congress

apple has to do battle the PC companies, cellphone handset makers, cellphone carriers, and redmond

both are doing battle with business 1.0 models and mindsets

both are handling the bits very well - google by finding, indexing and flowing the bits. apple by transforming the bits for human consumption.

I think you're missing a very clear way that these two companies can work together. It is becoming very clear that information is going to come in two flavors: ad-driven, but free, or ad-free, but at a premium.

There is no company in the world that is better than providing ad-driven but free than Google, and it is becoming rapidly clearer by the day that there is no company better at delivering information (and the pretty boxes that host them) in an ad-free premium package than Apple.

This is why I think these two companies can work together just fine-they don't actually compete.

If you want a free version of Google Docs, they're available on the web. If you want it free of ads, and with a slicker interface buy iWork '09.

Want a down and dirty copy of the latest American Idol, complete with video AdSense--Google (that is--YouTube)'s your man.

But if you want a pristine HD copy of Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin cracking wise that is sans Lipitor and Chevy Malibu spots, please to send $2.99 COD to iTunes.

And if you want a cheap, but clean Linux handheld, gPhone will hit the spot. But if you need a little Ive statue for your pocket, spend a little extra at your friendly local Apple store.

Who is the top marketing genius?
Who has the most profitable billboard space to sell?

Sometime the answer is simple.
Schmidt and his bosses probably know their limits and following their strategy to hire the best, they are doing their best to get a piece of Jobs.
It will be expensive and may be painful, as Job's
terms will be somewhat different then his peers, but that's not really what bothers their Royal Brightness ( aka Brin and Page ).
Poor Schmidt !

Let's not forget that Steve Jobs is a brilliant USER; that is, he uses other people and companies. Which is very much what you say in your blog, Bob, as usual. Spot on, again!

Cheers
William

Diskless PCs served from central stores (I'm of the generation that called the idea "network computers", but others differ) have been just over the horizon for almost as long as the idea of practical nuclear fusion. I'm betting fusion will get here first.

MAYBE people will use such a service when they can afford gigabit connections to their houses, but the 100Mbps you can get in Japan isn't enough, and the 6Mbps most of America has been capped at is simply laughable, if you're talking about moving the primary household data store online. Remember that large parts of this country can still choose only between low-bandwidth dialup and medium-bandwidth (but insanely high-latency) satellite.

And business? Forget about it...they can ALREADY afford that kind of bandwidth in many cases, but only a negligible quantity are willing to trust their data to third party storage outsourcers.

Even more to the point, while such a day would require a joint venture between a product company and a service company, Google is the wrong service company and Apple is the wrong product company.

Hippies and nerds. hummm I've got to remember that nugget of knowledge although I think I've kinda knew it but never put words to what a successful start needs. It seems as if each will play to it's strength in any partnership and that on the surface at least it's a equal partnership, but beneath the surface it will be who controls the user experience that really matters. I have a feeling that Schmidt/Google need to be more savvy when dealing with Apple/Jobs. This is GREAT theater to watch play out over time!!!

But the key difference here is that Apple will make more expensive devices, too, and everything will be labeled Apple and nothing will be labeled Google.

Which is smart from a development standpoint - why should my UI be hard-coded for a single back-end? If my hand-held mobile device hides the data fetch from the user, the user doesn't really care about the where or the how, it's the "what" that will provide the bang for the big Apple bucks.

One day, perhaps Apple decides Google isn't the one anymore, and now the magical devices bring Yahoo! content instead of Google content.

The question is, does Google care? It's worth a gazillion dollars now, sits on its own data centers, its own fiber, and has acess to new bandwidth: does Google really want to get into the phone and handheld mobile computing market? Why mess with UIs when you can run a subscription service for every hardware vendor that comes along, and make another gazillion dollars without the endless iterations of hardware, and the crappy margins that generally go with it? If its a win-win, its because neither company must fully and forever commit to the other, and each can still make a profit playing to its own strength. If there is anyone who loses, its the Apple customer who pays a premium for being first.

And once you have your life sitting on some company's server, are you going to move it on a whim? No, and that means there will be a LOT of money to be made providing these services. Storage and automated backup and probably some form of netboot with a fresh OS image every time is the future of computing whether we're talking about desktops or notebooks or mobile phones.

Indicates a Google win long-term, while Apple will be forced to constantly innovate to keep up. One glance at the history of Googles' stock price would seem to confirm this. ;)

Google is up to something. Has anyone seen how fast the Gmail storage allotment has been "spinning" upward lately? It's taken off like a rocket!

Between the now 10 gigs in my .Mac account, the (soon to be) 4 gigs in my Gmail account, and the "unlimited" Yahoo! Mail - I never have to throw anything away, ever. And it's a good thing, because (for some reason) spam to my Y!Mail account has dramatically increased over about the past three weeks. Granted, most of it is being filtered.

I am a stauch believer in not letting someone else have my data and more particularly them be responsible for it. There is no way I would trust even the likes of Google, Apple or even Microsoft to store my home photos for me. Google recently demonstrated they can't be trusted, with them pulling the plug on their movie download service and leaving folks who had paid good money for videos unable to play them any more.

Imagine if they took that approach with their online storage business. "Oh sorry we have decided we are no longer interested in online storage so we are stopping the service at 12 Midnight today. Oh, and by the way, if you don't copy your stored data back to your own storage devices before the deadline your data is irrecoverably deleted!!" Or better still, they open up the data to the Security Services so that they can read all my emails, view all my pictures, watch all my movies. I think not, Google may be smart but they are too smart for their own good sometimes. My data stays firmly on my own premises on my own disks and tapes thank you very much.

Here's my problem with Carr's vision -- it's the Web 3.0 version of the dumb terminal idea, back from the grave just in time for Halloween. It's an idea that sounds good on paper, but is fraught with problems. I agree with others here that corporate IT departments will balk at the idea of storing company data outside of their network on somebody else's servers. And we all know that Google wants to index every last document that passes through their servers, so the dream is dead right there.

What happened to the "Team Cringely (HUGE announcements about that are coming in next week's column, by the way)" you mentioned in last week's column?

And while you are at it, how about an update on the foil hard drive? Or has the project gone in the toilet, and you're hoping if you don't say anything everyone will just forget about it?

I've worked in mainframes, minis, micros, and embedded. Over the years there have been multple occasions when I've presented an approach that was derided as a "mainframe dinosaur in the age of PCs". Then people invented the term "server" and refused to admit it lived in exactly the same place on an architecture / network chart as a mainframe, and quacked like a mainframe too. Now you're talking about storage and backup and extra functionality out on the network, and it looks even more like those days.

With one exception: More people have woken up to the idea that their data is passing through the machines of people they have no reason to trust. This isn't a safe deposit box or even a storage locker, where each person has his own key to his own lock; it's like the masking-tape non-office lines on the carpet from WKRP.

Excellent practice Siv, where do you buy Tin Foil in bulk?

I bailed out of .mac when I read the fine print that everything I posted became there property. I have 1-1/2 Terabytes plugged into my Mac Mini because every time Apple decides to automatically "Improve" there OS, I loose a third of my data. Do I trust on line storage? H--L NO! 500 Gigabytes are kept in a sealed fire proof safe - I have two UPS systems, each with it's own grounding rod. I don't trust Steve OR Google!

Bob, you are a dipstick. (to dredge up an old phrase)

Here you say all sorts of brilliant and insightful things and then utterly destroy it all with the following boneheaded conclusion:

"The importance of all our digital stuff along with our fear of losing it will shift us more and more toward central backup and storage. And once you have your life sitting on some company's server, are you going to move it on a whim? No, and that means there will be a LOT of money to be made providing these services. Storage and automated backup and probably some form of netboot with a fresh OS image every time is the future of computing whether we're talking about desktops or notebooks or mobile phones."

Why would anyone pay anyone else to hold all their stuff when storage has become so incredibly cheap and ubiquitous? Perhaps I'm just too cheap. Perhaps I am a control freak. But I know that the network is fine for getting to everyone else' stuff, but I'd much rather have MY stuff close at hand and well within my control.

Backup? Buy 2X what I need for basic storage.
Netboot? No. I want to be able to work offline. Besides the Network is not THAT ubiquitous and reliable yet.
A fresh OS image? What about all my changes and customization? What about the time required to get the OS image off the network. It isn't like today's OS versions will fit on a floppy anymore! How long would it take to download and boot Vista or OSX over a DSL connection? By the time it finishes and runs the day would be over and you'd shut down and give up. Only to repeat the procedure tomorrow?

I love ya Bob, really I do. But sometimes I wonder why you keep thinking all this "back to the mainframe" stuff will ever come true.

BTW: I run a datacenter for a living. Go figure.

--chuck
http://chuck.goolsbee.org

I really dig the idea of the netboot and such. Except for the part about depending on some mysterious giant company for it. When those kinds of services are small, they sometimes work, but once they go big, any kind of customer service devolves into a boilerplate-email outsourced phone center hell. Then again, Apple's genius bars are for the most part better than other customer service centers, so maybe Apple will play here too.

Meanwhile, I think home RAID is a reasonable plan, or better yet, offsite backups like Fubario can provide. I'm still a sucker for the (hippie-ish?) power of p2p vs centralized big iron. Am I nuts? Yeah, probably, but LimeWire and BitTorrent are just MORE FUN than things like RapidShare.

And p2p tends to always be at a lower price point, but also tends to be at a lower service level, true...

Maybe centralizd Time Machine?

ATT will buy the 700 MHz band FOR Apple. They've already started (Aloha, Inc). Google will buy up the "dinosaurs"-- Universal, etc. Once their respective "Eisner" equivalents have been turkey-farmed. Very simple: Hardware/Network/message.

Chuck, you are not the target for what Bob is talking about. I have been in computers since before there was an IBM PC. I have computers of all kinds all over the place in my home and my children have been exposed since birth. They just use the computers to get to the "Net". They already are doing what Bob is saying. I have the ability to host all kinds of stuff for my kids and family, but THEY choose MYSPACE and FACEBOOK (and I cannot keep up with the rest), because it is out there and they can get to it on their tiny phone screens, but that does not bother them. That they can get to it anywhere without the knowledge that is sounds like you and I have. They don't want to run their own data center, they have lives! A reliable setup is not very hard, but much harder than keeping anything Linux or Microsoft has to offer. And Google, Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo! (don't forget them!) do it for them and for free (ads). I agree with you, but as I said, we are not the market. We know how to deal with these computers because that is our job. Not everyone is so tortured!

Yeah, I doubt very much people will make the leap to the offsite storage paradigm. I don't think even Apple can inspire that kind of trust in consumers.

You also understate how much Google and Apple have produced together. Google Maps on the iPhone is an example - there must have been, and still is, collaboration going on there. Plus there is a YouTube application on the iPhone and iPod Touch. I expect more things to come through the pipeline soon.

"And I challenge anyone to find evidence of the hand of Apple in anything now coming from the Googleplex"

Look at the customizing Google is making to all its mobile interfaces (calendar, documents etc.) to have better support for the iPhone.
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/10/google-on-iphone.html

Good column but I have a hard time imagining that you won't see Google's name on everything (and no matter what Apple wants or demands). I see Google's logo so many more times per month than Apple's. (I've even see a Google billboard twice this month, for the first time.)

But that Poll...that's your worst poll ever. What does Porsche have to do with either company? Nothing that I can think of. Porsche's had one successful product in the last 30 years, the Boxster. Compare them to BMW - BMW is tremendously more successful - and out-of-the blue, they launch an entirely different car line, the Mini, which has been more successful than even BMW could have dreamed. Finally, 9 out of 10 Americans can't even pronounce Porsche correctly.

AT&T just laid out $2.5B to Aloha Partners for the 700MHz spectrum they held. Not sure if AT&T will pay a lot for the upcoming 'C block' auction of 700MHz. But what they did purchase is said to cover an area of 196 million people. It's going to be interesting. Deep down, I'm thinking Google would do more with it versus the large telecoms.

Exploring possibilities, but it become rumor. Any way good thinking

http://blogkatt.blogspot.com

I don't see why everyone here views the network PC vs local storage as an "either/or" propostion. As Jeffrey Krzysztow pointed out, there will be an ever increasing market centralized storage/processing/backups for the social networking users and entertainment content users.


Business users will likely do BOTH, storing backups onsite via instantaneous disk archives (as price/meg drops and tapes fade away) and store secure dumps at offsite facilities.


Looking at it from THAT perspective there are plenty of ways GOogle and APple can work both together (consumer) and competitively (business).

Bob.. Who cares about this crap? I mean really.. you're going to space! what happened to the big announcement? You're disappointing me here bobbo. Get with the program. Hire a flunky to write your tech column. Hopefully you're already on that, and this dribble was written by a flunky for you 6 months ago.

If you're going to do this space thing, I expect it cringely style. Reliable weekly updates that make even the most mundane things sound like you're 2 weeks from launching. Get on it, and make it happen Bobby!

The only problem I see with this is that there are very stong indications that HTC (the leader in Windows Cell Phones) is building the hardware for the Google Phone, not Apple.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/16/htc-shipping-out-50000-mobiles-with-google-os/

I once had all my life on someone else's server, in the form of all the email I'd kept through my entire college career and the years afterward working for my alma mater. I had moved to a new job, and took my data with me, and put it on my shell account just as I'd saved it while at the U.

Then they shorted out the drive my files were on, shrugged and said "sorry, no backups", and I lost a large chunk of personal memorabilia and found a new ISP toot sweet.

Never Again. And anyone else with any sense can look around, see that no corporation has any vested interest in truly protecting YOUR data, and make the same decision. If they don't think that's necessary, it's only going to be a matter of time until the confluence of circumstance nukes your stuff from orbit.

I've been reading about this idea of online services and data storage since Larry Ellison pitched in the late 1990's.

Frankly, I'm not interested. I didn't trust large corporations back then and I trust them a lot less now. My data stays on my hard drive and my DVD's and I decide when my applications' features change.

How about Google offering free aps, courtesy of Apple? Selling a lot of Apple hardware and putting a big dent in Microsoft.

How about Google offering free aps, courtesy of Apple? Selling a lot of Apple hardware and putting a big dent in Microsoft.

"Frankly, I'm not interested. I didn't trust large corporations back then and I trust them a lot less now. My data stays on my hard drive..."

"How about Google offering free aps, courtesy of Apple? Selling a lot of Apple hardware and putting a big dent in Microsoft."

This encapsulates both ends of the debate. This is why Apple continues to offer Pages and Keynote and Numbers. I think to make people more comfortable with off-site IT, you need to insure redundancy and popularize PGP encryption. We're not quite "there" yet.

The on-line backup and storage concept really piques my interest and has for some time. But the main problem is that the amount of data we are collecting in our personal lives is growing much quicker than the bandwidth available for backing it up to an on-line service. The cable modem in my house peaks at about 4 mbits and that's not very often. In contrast, I have over 250 gigs of photos, music, and movies (all legal of course) that I really can't stand to lose. An incremental backup plan would be doable over-the-wire if there were few changes to the data each day, but the initial full backup or a full restore would be completely time-prohibitive.

Bob I've seen your new picture on the web site. Man have you aged, and not well. Rest and get some sleep. And geezz Bob
don't touch up your hair again. 8-)

I see what you are saying. but I am afraid it seems like its coming from the popular notion of steve always wanting to be in control of things (which granted is true). But I think whenever the time comes for the big switch, steve jobs would be rational enough to not let his hunger for control come in the way of companies success. There are somethings which are just plain too big for apple. And it would be classic mistake on the part of apple to not let google have its fair share of say and go for it alone.

hmm..

Apple frontend

Google backend

Intel technology.

Sounds like silicon valley is about to take over the world.

hmm..

you have an:

Apple frontend,

with a Google backend,

all running on Intel technology.

Sounds like silicon valley is about to take over the world.

I have been tracking the prospects of this relationship and I agree that we will see Apple/Google team up with a large Network operator to bid/win and deploy the GOLDEN "Last Mile" both players are missing.
One other thing that intriques me about Googles Mega Data Centers is their position (Fiber based Nationwide distribution network)to replace the major CATV Networks source or means of acquiring TV Programming: Satellite Networks, as in an aggregators like TNN.. What is missing here is a Fiber Link to the MSO or local CATV providers Headend. Google could access, store and forward the content as in direct TV Broadcast as well as capture and store VOD content in their data centers freeing up most Local providers to eliminate their expensive HEADENDS and big hits they take (sharing of their Revenues) with these Aggregators.
What about MultiPlayer On line Gaming Platforms at all Google Data Centers? This would cause most nationwide Internet based Game Centers, like Microsoft XBox Center, big heart burn wresting control of this big source of Interactive Broadband revenue and control of this On Line Business. It would also allow Apple to come out with a state of the art (Design) gaming device as well.

Many more things here.

Jim (aka Jacomo)

Cringely may be reading more into this boardroom chair warming than is warranted. Perhaps both men just believe in the adage "Keep you friends close, but your enemies closer".

my thoughts about reaching the transition point in computing...

When I think back on how the iPod first appeared, and remember that it was a hardware link to the real power that iTunes created in the music arena, I remember my thoughts about how it "just works."

Add in the iMac and remember how it contrasts to Windows based PCs bringing simplicity and ease of use to the computing experience. It just works too...

Next I see the introduction of the Apple TV, but only really see its value after buying one. I learn how it brings simplicity into my use of entertainment services in my home. It is missing some things that I am sure will come soon, but strangely it also fits into part of my life and again just works,,,

The iPhone is the latest in this long line of appliances that bring together more and more aspects of technology and information, and again, it just works...

Wonder how much longer it will be until we have Apple-delivered cell phone service on the 700 MHz spectrum using the successor to the iPhone as a data device on steroids (maybe called the iPhone Plus?)

Wonder what services we will start using at that point, because they will be enabled in ways we aren't thinking about now?]

One of these days Bob, I think we will wake up to the realization that we passed the transition point in computing as we began to replace the tools we used to use with more capable and easy to use appliances that just work.

Then we'll realize that Jobs was the first to bring it all together.

I think that it is even simpler then Bob explained. Google thrives on data to mine; Apple wants to be in the media delivery business (or rather sell the hardware and infrastructure for media delivery).


Google wants access to what you watch, who you call, where you are, and what you are doing. What better way to do that then to be a phone company. they have lots of dark fiber are going to get 700MHz airwaves and have access to an excellent customer base the iPhone.

Or maybe they want to go for TV. Google has been building out there CDN and Apple has the Apple TV (already works well with YouTube).

Sure Google would like things branded Google, but who cares as long as advertisers know who to call to place an ad. I'd bet few could name even one large print or TV ad placing agency, but most know that Google can place an ad. What more branding do they need, their "products" are free for the most part, so their real customers are advertisers not the end users.

"I am afraid it seems like its coming from the popular notion of steve always wanting to be in control of things"

Steve knows his limits. He cut PIXAR loose. Even Steve can't do EVERYTHING at once.

My ISP allows me to have over 200GB of storage - and it increases by 16GB a week. AND now that they're having their ten-year celebration, they're going to double that total to 500GB over time.

And they offer a deal that says for about $2.50 a GB ONE TIME PAYMENT they will host that GB forever - or until they go out of business, which is more likely.

But it's impossible to get the 200GB of stuff I have on my machine up there because my DSL upload is capped at 384K. A joke.

So, while your average end user may have only 10 or 20 GB of stuff to save, and thus could do it now, once it's all video and audio media files, it won't happen until the telecoms get their heads out of the butts and install at least 100MB to the home.

And even then, there's no way I'd let it be up there and NOT on my local machine at the same time. What happens if the stupid PG&E guys bust the cable on my street? No access, that's what.

People forget that all this "digital" stuff is still happening on PHYSICAL equipment that breaks from time to time. It's not "magic."

There's no conflict between the two: online and local storage. You need both. Online is simply for backup and for mobile access (and the latter will be much easier once the telcos stop preventing people from running servers over their Net access lines, so you can just access your own server and storage at home.)

In any event, I'm STILL waiting for some "big announcement". You've been predicting "big announcements" from Google and Apple and everybody else for years now - and we still haven't seen any.

I suspect neither Jobs nor Schmidt have the imagination to do anything REALLY big. They'e CEOs - and damn few CEOS have imagination.

Maybe we need crooked guys with big ideas like Robert Vesco rather than "hippies" or nerds.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that both hippies and nerds have so little grasp of reality that nothing they come up with can be made to work.

Actually is "...central backup and storage..." the future what with tetra hard drives now soon to be multi-tetra...perhaps just the opposite...

For 10 years, I kept my email on my own computer. For the last 7 years, I've kept my email on Yahoo's computers. I find my current arrangement with Yahoo to be much more conveniant.

But, it certainly would be nice if I knew that my email was encrypted with a private encryptian key under my control. And, a conveniant way to securily back-up the key.

And, yes - if I was of the anal-retentive type of personality, it would be nice if there was a conveniant way know where my Yahoo email back-up was.

There is no yahoo email back-up unless you download one yourself.

I learned this the hard way.

I think that Bob has a good idea here about storage, because the big offsite storage is probably not going to be targeted at regular consumers, but rather corporations. Corporations would love to have large storage capacity, and with apps out there like SAP, there is a neverending demand for more storage. If those huge offsite storage facilities envisioned by Bob and others contain adequate disaster recovery protection and have a competitive price, then corporations will sign on the dotted line.

The big thing to remember is that corporate storage isn't like going to your local Comp USA and picking up a few spare drives, but is usually much more expensive. Having an offsite datacenter is a way for a corporation to save a few bucks.

Lastly spec and prediction time...if the remote chance exists that google can really knock one out of the park with phone and nationwide wireless spectrum it is going to be good. no guarantees of course the iphone really did push the pace...if they can come up with something akin to iphone but more powerful with a network to back it up- watch out- lightning could strike twice. i think they realize this and seem coy in dispersions and odd errata info floating around. they just have to bully up to the bar and literally bet the company. stock will split and rise up to over 600 in one year if this can happen. probability- real world risk assessment :: gov't and lobby of entrenched telcom will squash the will and hopes of the common man (or geek). may it cause an information revolution and democracy in china?
the year of aquarius?
don't bet your pants.

uh that is my take on it, they have nothing to lose and time is on their side in a way...by that I mean the 'right' time. let's face it nationwide 'free' wifi is inevitable. a good analogy is that it is a big stack of wood that has been soaked with gasoline. the ad hoc attempts at spontaneous combustion have been diaphaneous (sic?) so the perfect storm of public demand and both corp and gov't cooperation and vanguard approaches to 'getting it done' need to be taken. the beneficial effects to the overall economy, U.S. prominence in science/math/comp, addressing the digital divide while simultaneously addressing health care and education is something that needs to be accomplished. don't make it more complicated that it needs to be. 10 guys could light up any major metro in one day. do it and seize the day, be open and transparent and make a profit as you must... but try to stay true to goals of a project that has sort of a moral imperative (and gestalt nature) due to its game changing, paradigm jolting modality. cheers

your truly from maine
shep

From the very beginning of my use of Google mail, I have forwarded all of the non-spam to my own box for my own archive. I only keep stuff on Google for convenience in accessing it in other places. Paranoia? Maybe.

Like TrueRock, I would feel a bit better if the stuff on somebody else's system was encrypted with my private key.

I think the Google Apple marriage does play to its strengths, but from my perspective, Google is an infrastructure company right now. Google dark fiber, google wireless, google Internet services. The google wireless option is pending right now, but with Apple underwriting the 700 MHz bid, they have the cash to take that spectrum and bumrush the US wireless scene, bypassing the GSM/CDMA issue and developing one phone to rule them all.

Develop a 700 MHz EDGE, 3G, or WiFi standard, get it into the iPhone, add another Google infrastructure, and another iPhone feature. Offer unlimited data plans for the iPhone, which can finally become a global phone. Give Google a cut of the iPhone payoff.

Could it be that Jobs views Google as another Xerox, with technology to buy and make better? For example, I'm guessing that Jobs is probably working with the iPhone team to steal every notable feature of the Google Phone right now, or at work convincing Google to let the iPhone be the Google Phone and let Google get a cut to cover their ROI. The alternative, competition, would strain relations and I doubt that Jobs will ever let that happen.

I just read all of these comments and laughed. The reason is because many of you guys think that because YOU don't trust others to store and safeguard your data, that alone will be enough to cause Google (and others) to abandon this strategy. I hate to break it to you guys, but you are now the dinosaurs of the tech world.

If you guys have kids, look at how they function. All of my kids are teenagers. We have one computer in the house for every person. We have two still/video cameras per person (if you count our phones). Once upon a time, I also held the "old-world mindset" that the best way to bring all of our digital media together was to have a central storage device, so I setup a network attached storage device for all of our computers to centrally share their information. That setup sounds great, but in reality, it does not work at all for the lifestyles of our youth. This is the next generation of users that these services are intended to target.

Jeffrey Krzysztow (above) hit the nail on the head.

I'll keep my sensitive information on Google's servers when they keep their sensitive information on mine.

Right you are D.H. that's why years ago I decided to have two computers in my home, one for sensitive information that I can transfer off line by disk to my online computer, and one computer for online information that gets hacked every week by prying eyes. I even plan to step that up with my own server and router that would simplify the transfer of content to my online computer. But that's not for everyone.

I do not understand why people think the day after a strategic alliance is announced, the fruits of its labor need to be shown. It took Apple over two years to develop the iPhone. In typical Apple fashion, it did this in secret. I see no reason to think that whatever Google and Apple are working on together would operate any differently.

Also, for what it is worth, Apple last year bought a pretty impressive data center at an auction. The data center was originally built for MCI, and Apple got a pretty good deal on it.

just my 2 cents about online versus off-line storage

"our bandwidth is to limited for the amount of data we will dispose of with all our media"?

where do we buy the information, and where will we buy it in the future?

on the internet.

there will be no significant upload as most of media will be bought online in the first place..

i would guess here is where apple and google will do significant work together, google online with the infrastructure and streaming, and apple off-line and with the user terminals and experience.

we will, seemingly, soon be in an environment where we are unaware of weather data is stored online or off-line. when we have universal continuous internet access, what is the point of knowing?

this might be where google and apple join visions. Their respective web-based business models want more people online, and all the time. Apple and google both gather income from online traffic, not the access. they are probably hard at work to give us such universal access that both companies will benefit from on their respective strongholds.

the point of knowing whether your data is online or offline becomes very apparant when for some reason you cannot get online.

the point of knowing whether your data is online or offline becomes very apparant when for some reason you cannot get online. Current infrastructure is nowhere near robust enough for me to want to store all my stuff up there some where.

the point of knowing whether your data is online or offline becomes very apparant when for some reason you cannot get online. Current infrastructure is nowhere near robust enough for me to want to store all my stuff up there some where.

In spite of my earlier comment, writers like Jerry K. are probably on the mark. I'm guessing a combination of on line and off line storage will be the norm- but it will be encrypted.

By the way, for those who still read, let me recomment Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon". He has predicted an awful lot accurately (invented the term Mataverse, for instance, in 1990 in the book "Snow Crash"- yeah, I know, others invented it, too). Covers period from Depression to current. Basically a war story/thriller about the new world of data business. Really a great read.

Enjoy

Yea, I can't access no more than what I pay for each month to my ISP. Sort of like cable or pay per view, but that is nothing "new" or novel. The consummer knows about innovation thru media sources like Cnet or ZDnet most of it is old stuff ea 4-5 years in the making. Stuff that has been discused recently was read about five years ago on IT or IP blogs. Since innovation has slowed due to a war I didn't vote for you are finnally catching up with doable technology not "new" technology. Most of this stuff was bought through aquisition of the companies so they could control the patents. Not anything new, so others many others all over the world already know about the new tech you are so excited about. That's why it will get the 'sorry' your tech missed it's mark and has expired it's shelf life. They paid billions to put your content on their servers. wow... The future? home video and content servers. The internet is what you make it. Immature? go figure

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/19/cyber.threats/index.html?iref=werecommend

Ray Noorda didn't have BYU ties, and he didn't seem to have any problem with the Provo crowd. Don't blame Schmidt's lack of "cultural" ties.

"the point of knowing whether your data is online or offline becomes very apparant when for some reason you cannot get online"

i agree this is inconvenient.

do you have a web-based email-account?
i do.

it bothers me sometimes when the connection fails. i guess that with google as service-provider we will have better uptime than with any other service provider and anything previously known.

And i guess that Apple's software (Remote Timemachine?) will help us sync the most important stuff...

this is exactly the problems a partnership between Apple & Google will solve,, a least for the masses,,

those who still want to know what server is used for their storage will once again be ignored..

The secret plan for getting everyone to backup all their data online is already almost complete. Flickr (or Picasa), YouTube, Gmail(or Yahoo Mail, and especially Google Hosted Mail (which is a paid service that corporations are beginning to adopt, because it's most reliable...)), Google Calendar, and Docs... Little by little, as their reputation and convenience improve (and the "private" alternatives stagnate, read Vista) we are making the change.

The secret plan for getting everyone to backup all their data online is already almost complete. Flickr (or Picasa), YouTube, Gmail(or Yahoo Mail, and especially Google Hosted Mail (which is a paid service that corporations are beginning to adopt, because it's most reliable...)), Google Calendar, and Docs... Little by little, as their reputation and convenience improve (and the "private" alternatives stagnate, read Vista) we are making the change.

Google has the supercomputer, yes.. But we all tap into it through the Internet, itself far more vast than Google's.
Lashing together Users and Sites in Swarms on the Web will defeat any single entity, no matter how Titanic, and will offer the only sure means of staving off Google's..
Steve Jobs, fund this old mystic.. :)

Apple's new OS has a number of new features which would enhance the usefulness of personal web assets. Apple has its .Mac service which includes some of those types of assets.

I wonder if the initial goal of Google's spectrum bid is to change the cell phone market with a better alternative and open standards. Of course Apple would be happy to provide an "open" communication device that works with various service providers using leased spectrum from Google.

“Jobs has succeeded by DEFYING the odds.”

This is the classic tech-pundit mistake regarding Steve Jobs’s Apple. He doesn’t “defy the odds”, he defies the tech pundits’ and analysts’ solemn pronouncements—or, more accurately, he ignores them. Yet, as a direct result, the company thrives, demonstrating with crystal clarity how worthless those pronouncements really are.

That is his unforgiveable sin, and why pundits and analysts excoriate Steve Jobs and Apple so viciously. They can hardly do otherwise when the company’s daily continued existence, indeed its ever-increasing prosperity under his guidance, point up for anyone with eyes to see that their advice is not worth the money they are paid.

”Why,” one can almost hear them say, ”he pays more attention to the market, the unwashed consumer masses, than he does to us! How dare he!”

Of course Apple will label the phone and Google will not argue for a second.

The way Google talks about that 700 MHz spectrum, they act like all they are going to do with it is lease it to other companies who want to be ISP's. They may even requires these ISP's to follow their four principles of open access that they requested the FCC enforce. Either way, Apple either becomes an ISP or the device maker for these ISP's.

Which brings us back to the Google label. It will also be on Apple's devices. Right in the middle, on the screen, because nobody spends more time on the iTunes website than they do on the Google searchpage, let alone Gmail, YouTube, and the rest of Google's expanding online empire.

Both companies believe that in an open environment, they will win so there is a shared goal of making sure that it happens.

The inspiration for this was AT&T, which threatened Google with huge fees for video delivery over it's pipe. This is old news, but they did the same thing to Apple. Apple can't sell their phones to Verizon users and they can't put VOIP apps on it. One only wonders what kind of negotiating it took to get permission for the iPhone to access iTunes or the Google searchpage instead of AT&T knockoffs of those websites. Apple wants to see what it can do with the shackles removed.

Of course, this all assumes that Google really does not plan any evil and they mean what they have said about the 700 MHz spectum.

Didn't G say they would purge all consumers collected data from their servers after one year. So I guess they only want info they need not info they no longer have a use for. Like most. Funny thing is every five years just when a company seems to gain world acceptance and all powerfull... another start up comes along and one up them. No one every sees it coming, it's the miricle of innovation. So most won't buy the 'neal and praise them' stuff. Didn't you watch the movie Judge Dread with Sly Stone. - DTA - 'Don't Trust Anybody'

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21420050/page/2/

New computer users seldom back up their work until they lose something that takes a long time to recreate.

Users of offsite storage will keep doing it until they lose something important to them. I doubt it would be old emails. That's inconvenient but not earth-shaking. I suspect it's more likely to be pictures. You can't go back to when your kids were babies and retake the pictures that got lost when iPhotoStorage.com went out of business or decided that free storage wasn't a moneymaker.

It is still the "new user" period with online storage for most people. Some of us old-fogies already know the pain of losing our data, though. That's why you see conflicting points of view in these comments.

Some say, "I'd never store my data where it could be lost." and others say, "My kids and friends all keep their data where they can get to it from anywhere."

What is needed is both of those things. Perhaps its just two copies of things. One is safe. One is readily available. (But, of course, then the comments about lack of bandwidth to transfer it between the two copies make a lot of sense.)

If someone solves it and convinces the marketplace, they could make a lot of money.

There is, of course, another option, and what you lay out may simply be a test from Jobs for Schmidt, or may be even Google for that matter.



Think about Apple. When has Apple always been in trouble? Whenever Jobs leaves the scene. When does Apple revive? Whenever Jobs returns.



That means that Apple has a big problem. A really big problem. Because one of these days Jobs is going to leave and not be able to return. He'll be dead - and he sure as hell won't be caring about Apple any more at that point.



So, what then is Apples - Job's grand-child and prize pony - going to do?



Apple can't seem to find another someone to run the company in Jobs' absence; which only leaves on real task for Jobs to do now - find and groom his replacement. If he fails, his beloved puppy will follow him to the grave.



What's more - Jobs has already faced cancer and knows that his time is limited. If the cancer returns, his chances aren't great. So, nows the time to find the lucky guy to run the show after he leaves - may be even try him out for a while whilst he can still return and take control back and save the company if the guy screws up.



So, may be - just may be - this is a test for Schmidt - does he have what is needed to run Apple? Or may be - just may be - this is a test for Google - does Google have what it takes to take over Apple when the time comes?



Jobs could be testing Schmidt and letting Schmidt run Apple without telling the world about it. Or he could be grooming Schmidt to take over - or Google for that matter.



Jobs is certainly thinking about how Apple will survive the next time he leaves. If he not, Apple will certainly be doomed to fall in oblivion and forgotten - his legacy forgotten, and he won't have that.

Bob, don't know if you noticed, but one of the major iPhone killer apps is a customer version of Google maps.

Additionally, Google has been quietly adding iPhone specific style sheets and views for all their major applications (gmail, docs, calendar and picasa).

This is exactly what Google should be doing -- the onus is on the to prove that their data drives killer apps on killer mobile devices like the iPhone.

Cheers,
rjf&

Has anyone else noticed that Google has been drastically increasing disk space allowance lately? About 10 days ago, GMail users had about 3GB and it was increasing by about 7 bytes per second. Then all of a sudden it started increasing by about 1500 bytes per second. In about a week we will all have 5GB of space, at which time I expect Google will announce a new online storage service.

Remember, you heard it here first.

NBC Universal pulled the plug on its promotional YouTube channel on Monday in support of the upcoming launch of Hulu. So much for world dommination.

I pretty much agree with everything you've said here with one exception: design is not subjective. I see people make this mistake all the time. And no offense, but the only people who think design is subjective are people who have no taste. ;)

Aesthetics are subjective. Art is subjective. But then art's purpose is to emote, not necessarily communicate or function. Design has, as its base, the need to communicate and function. And there is always only one best way to do it. Best is not subjective. The designers at Apple understand this and are relentless in their pursuit of the best. It's why great designs sets trends—because its the best—it's not luck—it's skill.

Apple's recent re-invention of .mac indicates to me that they still see value in providing a premium online service to users, with tight integration of desktop apps, for a fee. For this reason, it's unlikely Apple would be prepared to provide the same level of front-end integration for free Google-branded services.

On the mobile front, Apple's 5 year deal with AT&T means it's unlikely (although not impossible) they will partner with Google in that space any time soon.

In both cases, Apple may be conscious of being frozen out of future Google's innovations, but value they're closed-box control of the user experience too much to take any other path.

AT&T is releasing a Mobile Music service with Napster to compete with Itunes. It's all about shelf life. Last week a Google/Apple only players thingy sounded possible. But in the last few days you see the release of two even bigger player alignments. AT&T with Napster and NBC with HULU. Who nu!

Wooo Hoo! I hope you are correct about Google and the 700MHz spectrum. ssssshhhhhk shhhhaaaaw....you've been bent to the dark-side RXC. The cell phone companies have me, an ultra capitalist PO'd because of their government regulated monopoly outlook towards us as their duly ear-tagged profit centers. Praying google will buy and fling open the doors........

Much of your reasoning depends on your character assessment of Steve Jobs as a control freak. Nevermind Apple, think of Pixar, which he groomed to monumental success through a hands-off approach. There goes your argument.

Your reasoning also depends on characterizing Apple and Google as dissimilar, as hippies vs. nerds, when their similarity is more striking. Both are visionary, such that profit is a "way of keeping score" and not a raison d'etre. A Google exec on Book TV stated that the only way to really upset Larry and Sergei was "to bring them an idea that is too small." Putting ads everywhere is rather obvious (i.e. "small"), so forget about that as a motivation too. Remember that they originally resisted the idea of serving ads.

Both parties want to do cool things. Cool, as in beautifully conceived and executed. If you want to see the future, imagine what would be really cool, not what would make them lots of money. Free phone service and broadband? That would be cool. Gee, I wonder if it's doable.

Bob, Google has already become Apple's lapdog. I am sure you are familar with Google's re-encoding of all content into H.264 from flash. Isn't it ironic that Google decided to do this a month before Apple's I-Phone came to market and had a U-Tube icon link sitting nicely on the front screen... Coincidently, Apple has never (and probably won't ever) adopt flash due to Adobe (owns the code from their Macromedia acquisition) and ON2 (the sole licensed encoder for flash video) controlling it. They have never incorporated it into their Quicktime (the freebee)or their Quicktime Pro suite of codecs. So there is your prime example of Apple putting its grubby little hands into the Google cookie jar.

As an aside, Akamai is to Apple what Limelight is to U-Tube...errr Google!

I do not believe that people are going to put all their information on someone else’s server. I just ditched Verizon Wireless because they tried to force me to do just that. Economics and technology are also relentlessly against the proposition. Time Machine in OSX 10.5 says you want your backup data on a nearby RAID. Disk technology agrees and you can pick up a RAID for a reasonable price which we can expect to see decrease by 25%-30% / year. RAID may not always be the best archival medium, there is a bright future for the inventor of the high capacity, 50 year storage medium. Someone else’s server is great for sharing video, pictures, and for a web site. For my data, I want it where I can put my hands on it.

3D Virtual World Second Life software game simulations take up a lot of storage space. That's the only reason I can think of that the push is on to create more space. Once im guessing people start adding their own content to 3D maps of the Earth in Virtual word simulations the storage space problem would have already been addressed.

I wouldn't store my personal documents on a cyberspace server either. But a game document yes, so it doesn't clutter my hard drive. I read two different companies today that are speeding to market their 3D world products and one claimed it took up a lot of storage space. So buckle up, and get ready for the online storage bonanza!

Watch for Apple to bring out a $299 laptop only for people subscribing to the iMac service. Apple will hand over the network management to Google.

Taxation and Green Footprints - The other day I saw a news video of a person desending down over a border fence hanging on with one hand while he looked down for a place to land. In the foreground you see the front end of a car parked and two parking meters, at the same time there's this guy dangling. If I could have copied a still from that video I would have posted it for all. Because a funny qoute came to me... Feed the Meters!

http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/